Editing Public utility (section)

===United Kingdom and Ireland===
In the [[United Kingdom]] and [[Ireland]], the state, private firms, and charities ran the traditional public utilities. For instance, the [[Sanitary District]]s were established in [[England and Wales]] in 1875 and in Ireland in 1878.{{Citation needed|reason=statement\paragraph should be supported by citation to a reliable source. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources| date=May 2021}}

The term can refer to the set of services provided by various organizations that are used in everyday life by the public, such as: [[electricity generation]], [[electricity retailing]], [[Electric utility|electricity]] supplies, [[Natural gas utility|natural gas]] supplies, [[Water utility|water]] supplies, [[Sewage treatment|sewage works]], [[Water industry|sewage]] systems and [[broadband]] [[internet]] services.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uk250.co.uk/Utilities/ |title=Utilities Websites |publisher=Uk250.co.uk |access-date=2011-10-11 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104133007/http://www.uk250.co.uk/Utilities/ |archive-date=2011-11-04 }}</ref> They are regulated by [[Ofgem]], [[Ofwat]], [[Ofcom]], the [[Water Industry Commission for Scotland]] and the [[List of regulators in the United Kingdom#Utilities|Utility Regulator]] in the United Kingdom, and the [[Commission for Regulation of Utilities]] and the [[Commission for Communications Regulation]] in the Republic of Ireland. Disabled community transport services may occasionally be included within the definition. They were mostly privatised in the UK during the 1980s.